


Its Own Kind of Chase

by ShadowValkyrie



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Doyle
Genre: Community: lgbtfest, Drug Use, M/M, Short, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-29
Updated: 2008-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowValkyrie/pseuds/ShadowValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the LGBTfest 2008 prompt 697: Holmes's inability to fit in with Victorian morality extends further than the seven percent solution.</p><p>In the aftermath of a case, Watson learns things about his friend that he has difficulties coping with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Its Own Kind of Chase

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T+ for drug use. I also feel tempted to warn for the characters' severely Victorian mindset.
> 
> Huge thanks to my lovely and endlessly patient beta Rose71!

In my long years of acquaintance with Mr Sherlock Holmes, I accompanied him on a number of cases. Often his investigations led us out of London, even England, but on most occasions, the riddles he solved without ever leaving our sitting room were the most astonishing and gave the securest proof of the man's genius.

As I have mentioned before, not all the cases I have had the privilege to witness made their way from my files into print, either because they lacked a satisfying solution, or simply because there are aspects to them that would be less than fit for the public eye. In my possession I have documents that would throw shadows on the character of many an honoured gentleman should they be uncovered, but that I cannot bring myself to destroy, for they, too, give testimony to the greatest mind of our generation.

On one occasion, however, the shadow would be sure to fall on the man himself.

I have never been sure why I recorded this case -- and, more importantly, the private conversation that followed it, because the case in itself was remarkably insignificant -- at all, and on the very night it happened, except perhaps that it weighed on my chest so heavily that only the familiar comforts of ink and paper could lend my mind some semblance of peace.

Even less of an answer do I have to the question of why I never destroyed these notes afterwards, but kept them with me, folded on the bottom of my tobacco case, because I could not even trust the bank with them. I think my dear, late wife once found them there, but she, gentle soul that she was, never broached the scandalous subject. In any case, it had all taken place before my marriage.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was a rainy afternoon, in the spring of 1886, the patter of the drops on the windowpanes the only sound. Holmes and I were sitting together by the fireplace of our shared Baker Street lodgings, the table behind us still set for tea, with Holmes's portion untouched.

A casual observer could have termed the silence companionable -- and on most other days it might have been. Holmes was sitting in his customary armchair, his head slightly cocked as if listening. One had to know him well to see that his face was unusually gaunt and that his stillness was only superficial, meant to hide a tension that would have driven other men to pace and shout.

It was the latest one in a long row of devastatingly quiet days. I was trying to concentrate on my medical journal, yet I could not help but notice my friend's eyes stray to the mantelpiece time after time. It was where he kept the case that contained his syringe and the bottle of seven-percent cocaine solution he resorted to whenever he had no challenging case to keep his mind busy, causing me no end of chagrin.

There was a knock and after Holmes's impatient "Enter!" Mrs Hudson's head pushed in. "There's a young lady come to call, Mr Holmes..."

I might gladly have kissed our good landlady's hand there and then, so relieved was I. A case, finally!

Holmes had already jumped up, rubbing his hands expectantly, and his eyes had lit up with a healthier glow. "In with her, then!"

Our client was in her twenties at most, a beautiful girl whose chestnut curls were pulled back from a round, soft face with large eyes of watery blue, to form an intricate hairdo. The skirt and blouse she wore were clean but rather simple, and when she removed her gloves, I could see that her only adornment was a slim gold band around her left ring finger.

She wrung her hands anxiously and as soon as Holmes had put her coat on a hanger and sat down, she began to open her heart to us. "Please, Mr Holmes! You have to help me! My situation is desperate!"

Holmes was watching her, his sharp grey eyes narrow and thoughtful. "Why don't you give us your name and detail your case?" I was surprised he did not try to impress her with the numerous conclusions he had undoubtedly already drawn from her appearance, as he tended to do, but I supposed her situation seemed urgent to him and thought no more of it.

In the following minutes, we learnt that her name was Elsa Chandlers, that she worked as a typist for one of the bigger shipping companies, and that she had come to seek Holmes's help on a very personal matter, namely that of her mysteriously disappeared fiancé, whom she feared some ill luck might have befallen.

"My father is dead and my mother ill," she closed her story, clutching the handkerchief I had lent her in her lap. "Without James's support I cannot take care of my family. Please, Mr Holmes, I have heard so many good things about you, I beg you: help me."

"What a dreadful situation!" I exclaimed. "Holmes, we need to find the man!"

Holmes ignored me and frowned at her. "When did you say your fiancé disappeared?"

"Two months ago," she replied.

He nodded and, seemingly unrelatedly, asked if she would mind letting him have a closer look at the ring. She slid it off her finger and gave it to him, whereupon he studied it under his magnifying glass for a few moments. "I suppose you do not take it off often?"

"Oh no," she said, "it may seem sentimental, but I keep it on my finger at all times to remind me of him."

Holmes smiled in the faintly grim way I knew had nothing whatsoever to do with amusement. It made me wonder if he had already found a decisive hint towards a crime or even its perpetrator.

He made to hand the ring back to her, but accidentally dropped it. It was retrieved in an instant and he put it back on her finger, which made her blush a little and smile at him. His own smile, however, was a less than pleasant thing.

I rose with Miss Chandlers, who was delicately putting her gloves back on, as confused as I that Holmes remained seated.

"So... can I count on your help, sir?"

Holmes leant back in his armchair and steepled his fingers. "No," he said, very calmly, a sardonic twist to the corner of his mouth.

"Holmes!" I cried. "Really, you cannot..."

"Don't be upset, my dear Watson," Holmes said, in a most dismissive manner. "As the lady knows well enough, no help is needed. I hazard the guess that she is indeed sorely in search of a fiancé, but I do not think it was a sound idea to come here for that, given that the man she described is most likely dead or did never exist. Personally, I do by no means intend to take his part in this little play of hers."

While he spoke, the lady in question had lost all colour to her face.

I looked back and forth between them. "Holmes, I do not understand..."

I was interrupted by a loud sob, as she turned and fled our rooms almost at a run.

"The common response of the guilty," Holmes remarked with distaste.

"Even if she were," I objected, "you have been most unkind and would not even let the poor girl defend herself!"

Holmes gave a snort. "Please, Watson, I know her kind. The vilest sort of admirer is a romantically motivated one. Not a word of what she said was true and I do not have the patience to listen to more lies."

"I'm afraid I do not follow you, Holmes. Until you scared her away, she seemed perfectly sincere to me!"

"Because you do not perceive your surroundings the way I do. For instance, I have told you often before that a person's occupation leaves distinctive marks on their appearance. Miss Chandlers claimed to be a typist, yet her hands were soft and her fingernails too long. The typical worn places at the wristcuffs of her blouse were likewise missing. The ring she showed me was fairly high in gold content, yet completely unscratched. This allows for at least three explanations: she does not work with her hands at all, not even around the house, as a woman caring for her ill mother would; she did take the ring off, which would make the sentimental story of her emotional attachment to her fiancé seem much less credible; or -- which is the answer I think likeliest -- she only recently bought the ring to support her story. That would correspond with the fact that the ring came off easily and had not yet left any visible indentation in the skin."

He must have seen I was not quite convinced, for he continued mercilessly. "As you can probably guess by now, I dropped the ring on purpose to be able to test a theory of mine from up close. I saw that while she wore plain outer garments, her underskirts were of a much finer material and trimmed with lace, which would be the first instance in my knowledge that a woman hides good clothes under drab ones, instead of the other way around. No, Watson, those were not the skirts of a woman in a financial plight. Similarly, my close observation of her shoes prove them to be as dry as her coat, and free of mud, which leads me to the conclusion that she must have come here by coach. Moreover, those shoes were very recent in fashion, the leather smooth and the heels hardly worn, so they must have been recently bought. You see, my friend, it all fits together like the pieces of an ugly puzzle."

I had nothing to say to that, so I sat silent while he presented more damning clues to me. "Her hair was braided in a style she can hardly have done herself, her bearing much too graceful for a woman of the working class. And finally, while she was talking, her hand would wander to her wrist, as if to touch a bracelet she is in the habit of playing with, but did not wear today, presumably because it is too costly and would have given her true financial status away."

What he said made sense, revealing a larger picture, as his conclusions almost always did. I shook my head. "But that is unreasonable; why would she invent such a story and go to such lengths to playact and to disguise herself, however badly?"

"In the vain hopes of winning affection, I would suppose," he pronounced the words like something supremely distasteful, "by provoking our compassion."

I was not sure what to make of this. My friend's assumption might well be correct. It is astonishing how many women feel drawn to a cold, distant man, thinking themselves the only one capable of warming his heart. And of course he was right also in that behaviour of the kind she had displayed was tasteless to the utmost. On the other hand... "Sometimes I think a little compassion would not go amiss with you, Holmes, you seem positively made of ice!"

"I assure you this is not true," he gave back. "But I do not see why I should expend time and energy in a useless manner on an undeserving subject. You let yourself be blinded by a genial face and the general misconception about women's innocent nature. This cannot happen to me, since, as I have told you before, I do not share your appreciation for the 'fair sex', as people call it, in the least," he said decisively.

Over the course of our conversation, Holmes had returned to the state he had been in before his brooding had been interrupted by our visitor. The inquisitive light in his eyes had dimmed gradually back down to a sickly gleam directed at the mantelpiece, and his fingers drummed the armrests absently, mind and body both craving the distraction of the drug.

"But, Holmes, love is a necessity!" I finally tried, desperate to keep him in the conversation, although it was not the first time I had used this argument. "Without it, man would be no better than a machine."

"Machines are often more efficient... But that is not the point here. As I have told you before, my dear Watson, I consider affairs of the heart an inexcusable waste of time." He raised a hand to still my immediate protests. "Affairs of the body are, however, an inconvenient necessity." I knew him well enough to see that what he intended to sound sardonic was to a large part resentment. "Though I would obviously never allow those to cloud my mind and judgement, either."

Nevertheless I was somewhat smug. "Ah, so you finally admit to being flesh and blood?" For a moment, I tried to imagine my friend in a casual affair or with a woman of ill repute, but it was something I utterly failed to wrap my mind around. "And yet I have never seen you watch any woman with interest, except the former Miss Adler, but since you insist your curiosity towards her has been purely intellectual, I do not see where you find that physicality that you just called a necessity. As our would-be client shows, you are far from lacking in female admirers, yet I've never seen you so much as raise an eyebrow at any of them."

"You are not listening, Watson," he said, shaking his head in mild exasperation. "I told you I do not harbour any interest in women."

"I am not sure what you are implying," I said uneasily, while I watched him rise from his armchair, all energy drained out of him, the movements of his long limbs jerky from withdrawal, and walk to stand in front of the fireplace.

His eyes were fixed on mine while his hands prepared his injection with the efficiency of long habit. The amusement in his gaze bordered on contempt; a look I had seen on him often, though never directed at me. "Oh, really? You do not?" He tapped the syringe and pushed the air out of it. "Surely you must be familiar with the concept of homosexuality, having been a military man so long."

"I am not," I firmly said, though I felt like my collar was choking me all of a sudden. It could not be. Not him. "The journals on psychology are, however, all quite clear on the subject of this severe mental illness, that you surely do not intend to tell me you are a victim of?"

"Resorting to medical formality?" Holmes put the syringe down again and turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. "One would think, dear friend, the topic was uncomfortable for you."

"You mean to tell me it is not so for you?"

The smile on his face was narrow, dangerous. "Moderately." He rolled his shirtsleeve up, baring pale skin perforated by puncture wounds. "Insofar as I am conscious of the damage the fact would cause to my public image, should it fall into the wrong hands or become common knowledge."

The severity of the matter sank in doubly with that. I felt abruptly torn between pride in his trust to me and feeling immeasurably horrified at his deviance. "Please, tell me, Holmes, you do not intend to act on these... unnatural inclinations of yours, do you? There are laws against that sort of thing in this country..." I was shocked to find my worries outweighing my disgust by far.

Holmes shook his head. "Your continued insistence on conventional morals is inconceivable to me, Watson," he said. "You have seen me go behind the back of authorities, have seen me break into houses, have seen me shoot to kill, and, what is more, you have justified these unlawful acts of mine in your writing more than once. Yet you keep berating me for small habits that harm no one but myself and can therefore hardly be considered immoral, legally forbidden though they may be. And you voice your disapproval in a most inappropriately passionate manner at that."

"But... those are completely different matters, Holmes! The public good..." I found myself sputtering and tripping over the threads of my argument. "You can hardly dismiss these vile and destructive habits of yours as a thing of minor importance."

He gave a snort. "I see you are purposefully missing my point again. What I was saying is that law and morality are not always the same and that where they are, they not necessarily should be. I firmly believe in man's responsibility only towards his own conscience." He shook his head again, no longer looking at me. "I am, however, also a pragmatic person and as such I will always weigh carefully which of my mental and physical needs to indulge," he let his eyes linger on the smooth wood of his pipe, which stood propped up on the mantlepiece as well, symbol of the criminal cases past and future that were the center of his life, then on the cold glass of the syringe and the colourless liquid inside it that was the alternative, before he looked back up at me, "and which to refrain from. You know I can deny my body nourishment and sleep almost indefinitely should I choose so, and this is no different."

The distant coldness of his tone, dispassionate against himself, made me shudder, yet I could not utter a word.

"Besides, it is not as if there is anyone to share my, as you phrase it so reassuringly, 'unnatural inclinations' with, anyway. You needn't worry for me, my friend." He paused, his face devoid of expression, but too much of it in his eyes."I hope I still have your friendship, Watson?"

I nodded without hesitation.

"So all's well then." Holmes gave me a faint, slightly cynical smile, before he turned his attention back to the cocaine and pushed the needle under his skin.

 

* * *


End file.
